Sleepless
by Mirror and Image
Summary: [Complete] After the season 2 finale, Pidge tries to handle the events. She doesn't, but somewhere along the way she manages to help Keith as he also tries to handle the events.


**Sleepless**

Mirror and Image

Pidge wasn't a sleeper.

No, that wasn't technically right, she liked sleep as much as anyone, but she didn't _crave_ it like others did. She didn't cover her face in cream and demand an exact number of hours, nor did she miss alarms when they rang, nor did she need a bed for that matter. She was practical.

That she was at war didn't help matters either.

She had gone from gut-punching tragedy to undefined anger to conspiracy theorist to desperately searching for the truth to now a Paladin, saving the universe from the most dangerous of enemies, and sleep was by necessity a secondary function. It was more practical to work on projects in the dim of night, run and debug code, reverse engineer Galra and Altean technology, get systems to talk to each other. Getting the invisibility cloak on her lion was just the first of several ideas she had to tip odds in her favor, and she couldn't do them and be a pilot and form Voltron... _and_ look for her family.

Maybe that was part of it, too, if she wanted to be honest with herself. She could still remember watching the news from the stairs, her mother forever frozen, the phone ringing somewhere in the house, as the fate of her family was broadcast for everyone to see. Sleep came second to answers, after that, and she still hadn't found her closure yet. Hadn't found Matt. Or her dad. She needed an edge, something to make the fight go faster, make the search go better.

She wasn't the only night owl. Lance and Coran were resolutely in bed at a certain time, but Hunk would often stay up late working with her on projects, but he always tried to go to bed at a "sane" hour. Keith, according to the ships systems, often trained at night, and especially in the beginning Allura would wander the royal chambers of the castle. Pidge left them to their activities as they left her to hers.

What she hadn't realized was that she wasn't the only one who found sleep nonessential.

It took her a while to figure it out, but when Shiro started showing up in the dead of night, face always a little pale, temples always a little moist, well; they had all seen him when he first landed on earth, and they all kept watch – Keith most religiously – for when moments like that would hit him. Shiro was... healthy wasn't the right word, but he was emotionally stable enough to understand what his problems were and handle them accordingly. Keith had talked to him more than once about his PTSD (Pidge knew because she had given him the research on it their first night together, before Lance had found Blue and everything had changed), and everyone had some way to making Shiro feel better when he froze.

After Keith Pidge had been the first one on board for looking out for their commander. At first it had been out of selfish desire – he knew what happened to her family, and she had to get it out of him any way possible, it was logical that getting on his good side and helping him through his trauma would make him more inclined to divulge what he knew. But then...

Then he'd called her Katie.

Then he's risked his life to save her, lions running up to shelter them in turn.

Then he'd explained saving Matt's life.

And... then he came to see her in the dead of night and ask how she was doing.

Shiro... he filled a part of her heart that had been empty since all of this had started, and after him the others wormed in as well, and she was... full wasn't the right word, but she understood that it had been a poor decision to leave the team, and she knew that no matter what happened, _this_ family wouldn't fall apart.

Sometimes they talked at night, sometimes they didn't. Shiro resolutely never mentioned whatever night terror sent him to her – he took his role of leader seriously and wouldn't jeopardize the idea of being unflappable and competent – but in the wee hours of the morning, lights dim and muscles stiff from not moving, he would sometimes just watch her with an intense look in his eyes, and Pidge would get up, creak out her knees and back, walk over and splay out over his back. He stiffened the first few times, but she simply said he was the perfect size for a body pillow. He was warm, often tense, but when he sat down he was at the perfect height to use one shoulder as a pillow and drape one arm over the other. She would talk about her projects, or confess an insecurity, and he would share a story about the Holts, what the journey to Kerberos was like (never Kerberos itself. That was sacrosanct, and Pidge knew better than to ask).

Once, in the middle of the day, Pidge and the others found Shiro sitting on one of the couches, staring off into nothing, data pad useless on his lap. Keith immediately knew something was wrong but not what to do, and Pidge just stretched out over his back and waited. Keith took up residence at Shiro's feet, to be the first face he saw and Lance started singing something in Spanish, soft and soothing, while Hunk disappeared to get proper food. Shiro's first reaction after that particular episode was to reach up and touch Pidge's face, pushing their heads together and taking a deep, heavy breath. Later, again in the dead of night, he came to her again, but there was no intensity or sweat, just soft eyes and a softer smile. "Thank you," he said. "I knew I was safe when you did that."

And now he was gone.

And Pidge couldn't quite figure out what was different.

Sleep was still secondary, she worked on her projects regardless of Shiro being there or not, but somehow it was all wrong, and as much as she knew why she didn't want to admit it, and all she could do was stare at the screen in the dim light, curled around herself, trying to figure out what to do.

This wasn't like when her family disappeared. There was no conspiracy to trace, no entity to blame, no data to collect. He was there, they were there, there was a blazing sword and then... nothing. Emptiness.

… It was just like when her family disappeared.

She wiped her eyes again and grunted, frustrated, slapping her cheeks to snap herself out of it. "Come on," she muttered to herself. "Come _on_." She shifted her gaze back to the screen. Stared at it blankly, and repeated the process.

Even when her father and brother were gone, she had still worked. Indeed, she had worked with increased fervor, pushing herself to get the answers she and her mother needed, the closure that would make any of what happened better, easier. Why was this any different? Why was it so hard to concentrate when Shiro wasn't here? It wasn't like he was here even more than thirty percent of the time, she was _used_ to being alone and working, _used_ to doing things herself. If only thirty percent of her nights had changed, then why did it feel like _everything_ had changed? She stood up, knees and back creaky, and she didn't have a human body pillow to lean against and _nothing made sense anymore._

She pounded out of the bay, steps heavy and erratic, trying to work out the flush of energy that had suddenly overtaken her. She wasn't quiet at all, just walking laps around the castle, lost in her own head, trying to cope with something she swore would never happen to her again. Something _Shiro_ swore he wouldn't _let_ happen to her again. That thought made her kick a wall and darn near broke her toe. Cursing, Pidge finally decided to go up to the training deck. If she was upset enough to be violent she should at least be healthy about it.

… Shiro would have wanted it that way...

… _Quiznak!_

She shouldn't have been surprised to see someone else there, but she was. She entered and saw a lanky form with dark hair dancing around one of the training drones, bayard sword swinging erratically and without the usual grace Keith normally held, giving a feral grunt before deactivating the droid and crumbling to his knees, panting. Pidge stared, uncertain what to do.

Keith's breathing slowed, eventually, and Pidge was able to pick out the rhythm and... Keith was crying...?

The boy sucked in a breath and gave a pained cry, fist pounding into the floor.

One part of Pidge felt uncomfortable, witnessing such a private moment. But the other, larger part saw that Keith was grieving just as much as she was, and she dithered on whether to go check on him or let him have his moment. She shuffled on her feet, uncertain, but the decision was taken out of her hands when Paladin looked up and their eyes locked. Pidge stiffened at being caught, and watched Keith absorb the information slowly before all color drained from his face, then red surged forth as he immediately got to his feet, half turning awkwardly, trying to hide what she had seen.

"Sorry!" Pidge said, shoulders bunching up. "Sorry!"

Keith's shoulders were shaking, and with his head turned away Pidge wasn't sure if it was still grief or rage or something else. She took a few steps forward, reaching out. "I was walking around and I just—!"

Keith's shoulder slumped, his entire frame dipping down, before he shoved hands into his pockets and turned around. His face was carefully neutral, eyes slightly flat as he straightened. "What are you doing here?" he asked, voice tight.

Pidge twiddled her fingers, a curiously rare moment where she couldn't find the words she wanted. She looked down, feeling heat in her cheeks. "... 'm sorry," she mumbled.

She heard a sigh, and looked up to see Keith exhaling all the way down. "You should take better care of yourself," he said finally. "We can't..." Pain flicked across his face. "We can't form Voltron if one of us is so exhausted."

Pidge looked down again, the words not setting right in her brain. Those weren't Keith's words... Oh, sure he was just as practical as Pidge, able to boil problems down to the simplest and sometimes harshest solutions, quick to put the universe above everyone else, but asking Pidge to take care of herself... referencing forming Voltron... it sounded like...

Keith pursed his lips. "Let's get you to bed."

Nerves were firing in Pidge's cranium and a chill stuttered down her spine. That was a sentence she's heard any times, but from different lips, and something in her chest broke. She shook her head involuntarily, and her eyes watered again, taking a step back. "Please don't say that," she said.

Keith frowned, confused, and chewed on his lip. After a moment, he grimaced and said, "Come on. Nobody wants to see you work yourself to the bone."

Stop. Stop saying things like that. Stop sounding like him.

"Wouldn't... wouldn't your family want to see that you took care of yourself?"

Pidge was backing away now, not running exactly, but trying to escape what she was hearing, trying to stop hearing _his_ words coming out of someone else's mouth. She bumped into a wall, startled, and backed up further.

"Pidge...?"

Her eyes snapped up to him, and she saw confusion on his face, pain that he usually hid so well, a grimace that slowly flattened to a tight look of determination. A hand reached out and touched her shoulder, a light squeeze that was so like _him_ , so like _Shiro_ , that Pidge couldn't take it anymore. She slapped the hand away, sidestepping and curling from the contact. "Don't touch me!" she grunted, backing up. She couldn't look at Keith's face, didn't want to see his expression, "You don't get to touch me – you don't get to put a hand on my shoulder, or give me a one-armed hug, or talk about my family, or look after me! Don't do _any_ of that!"

Moving backwards as she was, she stumbled over something – the deactivated droid – and landed hard on the floor. Keith's hand entered her field of vision, offering to help her up, and she couldn't even handle _that_ , and she swiped at it. " _Don't help me!_ " and she scrambled to her feet and ran, tears streaking down her cheeks. _Quiznak_ , she was trying to avoid this!

A full sprint could only last for so long, and she eventually slowed to a jog and then a stop, putting her hands on her knees and breathing deeply, trying to hold it all in. The dam had broken, however, and she couldn't stop. She covered her face, crouching down to her toes and _shuddered_ , emotion pouring out of her. Everything came out of her – the deep ache in her chest and the overwhelming sense of loss, the pain of going through all of this a _second_ time, reliving the _first_ time, the desperate need to try and stay level, Mom needed her, Voltron needed her, she had to get answers to make this all make sense except there were no answers not like the first time he was _gone_ just _gone_ and there was no explanation no way to understand it all she could feel was hurt and everything hurt and she couldn't take much more of this and she _wailed_ like the child she was and begged all the spacetime that Shiro would just _come back and make it all better_ please just do something to make the pain go away she was tired of hurting and _he wasn't there..._

The balls of her feet eventually gave out, and she fumbled to her behind and curled into herself, her body a storm of emotion and all she could do was ride it out. When it was all over, her hands were soaked, her glasses smudged, and her nose incapable of oxygen intake. Without tissues, she cleaned her nose on one sleeve and her face on another, trying to sniffle as she took off her glasses and clean them with the hem of her shirt. It was then she saw something out the corner of her eye, and she looked up to see a blurry Keith sitting cross legged across from her, eyes slightly vacant and face pained.

She didn't even have the energy to be surprised. Pidge blinked puffy eyes slowly, tried to make a noise or ask a question but only managed a watery hum.

Keith blinked to attention, taking in the sight of being watched. He pursed his lips but held her gaze.

Pidge swallowed, tried again. "What are you doing?"

"Looking after you," Keith replied. His voice was watery, too; and without her glasses Pidge couldn't make out enough detail to make further conjecture. She didn't have the energy to even lift her glasses. Slowly she put enough pieces together to remember yelling at him, and through her numbness a flicker of pain crossed her synapses.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking down. "You didn't deserve that."

Her hands were still wet. She rubbed them on her shorts, not wanting to look up, not wanting to see Keith's expression.

"... What happened?" Keith asked. His voice was stronger now, but also more careful. She deserved that on an analytical level, and she wondered if she should feel something about it. The cry had taken everything, however, and she couldn't summon the right emotion.

"... You sounded like him," she settled on. "Too much like him. It didn't... It felt like you were trying to replace him. Erase him."

She looked up, saw Keith's eyes widen as he processed what she said and what she hadn't said – what she hadn't been able to say since the disappearance. The Paladin's face crumpled into a grimace, he looked like he did when she first found him in the training room, and his head dipped down with the weight of the emotion he felt. A fresh tear slid down Pidge's cheek, and she scrubbed at it with a damp sleeve.

"He said..." Keith mumbled, voice so low Pidge almost didn't hear it. A pause drew out and Keith worked through the words he was trying to say, and looked up, dark eyes moist but face dry. "Shiro said..." Pidge flinched at the name, but Keith pressed on, "Shiro said, after we were separated in the wormhole, Shiro said that if anything happened to him he wanted me to lead the team." Pain filled his face. "Then he said it again, and again. And now... Now..." he sucked in a shaky breath, and a gloved hand came up to rub his face. "I don't know how to do this," he confessed, voice rough with emotion. "I'm not _good_ at this, but I have to be, because Shiro said..."

Keith ran a hand through his hair, dark locks flaying out before settling back into place.

"... The only thing I can do is..."

Pidge shook her head, thick brown hair swishing across her blurry vision. "Don't," she mumbled. "Don't pretend to be him. Just..." She didn't have an answer for him, didn't have a way to make him feel better about the responsibility he put on himself or the insecurity he felt. She didn't even have her _own_ life together – she was in no place to try and help Keith. "Just be yourself." The sentence was corny and cheap, devoid of deeper meaning, but it was all she had to offer.

Keith's eyes widened again, hands on his knees and blinking rapidly. "You would... you would follow me? Just me?"

Pidge nodded, a nasally hum of agreement floating through her voicebox. She would follow any of them; Keith, Lance, Hunk, Allura, Coran... it didn't matter. They filled the emptiness in her while she looked for her family, made her feel alive and whole and filled with purpose. She would never let that go. That one of them had been taken from her...

Another hot tear slid down her cheek, but before she could react fingers came up and brushed it aside. She stiffened, looking at Keith in confusion, but he suddenly grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into a fierce hug – not one-handed like Shiro, not sensitive to an unwanted metal appendage – both arms squeezed with a force that nearly pushed the breath out of her. Keith was shaking again, like in the training room, and her shoulder was added to the parts of her shirt that were damp. Something she said was either very good or very bad; and later, after a long sleep and time to reverse engineer all of this, she could decide which it was.

In the meantime she reached up, wrapping her arms around his waist, and hugged back. She waited through his emotional storm as he had waited through hers, and her burning eyes grew heavy. The crook of his neck wasn't the perfect size Shiro's was, but it was good enough, and she was tired enough, and eventually she just drifted...

* * *

She woke in her bed, shoes off and blanket up to her chin. What...? Had Shiro whisked her to bed aga—

She jolted up in bed, adrenaline flooding her brain and blurry vision darting around looking for the person who most often put her to bed. But Shiro wasn't sitting by her laptop, dozing in the peace of mind that he was looking after a member of his team; indeed no one was there, and as her brain came more fully online she remembered the previous night. The ache of the loss washed over her again, and for a long time she just sat there, absorbing it all again. Sighing she got up and put her shoes on. Back to work, it seemed.

Except Keith...

She should probably check on him.

He wasn't in his room or on the training deck, the two most probable places, but he was at the commissary, sipping a cup of something. Hunk was nowhere to be seen, which meant it was late enough into the day cycle that she'd missed breakfast, a not uncommon event. As always, a plate had been saved for her and she sat at it mutely, studying the other Paladin.

He looked like she felt, worn and tired and sick of feeling so much. Out of sequence events filtered through Pidge's mind; she most remembered the hallway, him holding her so fiercely after letting her have her cry, but she also remembered the training deck, and how she had slapped his hand away and spurned his help. She pursed her lips, regret coloring her cheeks. She couldn't let that go without saying something.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, "About last night."

Keith looked up from his cup, eyes wide. "... What?"

Pidge squirmed a little in her seat, the space goo suddenly unappetizing. "I wasn't trying to push you away," she explained. "You just sounded like him so much..." Her eyes burned again, and she shook her head. She was so _tired_ of tears. "I didn't handle it well. You deserved better. I'm sorry."

Keith shook his head, a wry smirk on his face.

"No," he said, standing. "You told me exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you." He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, but he didn't squeeze it like Shiro would, just held it there a tick or so before letting go and moving out of the commissary.

He paused, turning back. "You coming?"

Pidge felt something she hadn't been expecting – not for weeks – relief. "Yeah," she said quickly, "Just let me grab my space goo."

 **End**

 **Author's Notes:** Ooooh, the angst. The twins once again take their two favorite characters and make them the best feature of the show. Seriously, how do these two not have more fics together? Anyway, while we weren't the complete wreck that we were after the Rebels season 2 finale, Voltron's season 2 left us with about a million burning questions and desperately curious to know how things move forward from here.

Most of the Voltron fics you'll see posted here are spurned from Mirror, but this fic is specifically Image's baby - written as a freeform of all things in between running herself ragged doing a painting a week. It kept building, and after a week this is what we ended up with. Mirror stamped her seal of approval and here it is.

Not much to say about the fic itself, really. It kind of speaks for itself.

Star Wars Rebels season finale tonight! So much excitement!


End file.
